The Perfect Space
by Nyco1125
Summary: Pagan was Blaine's best-kept secret at her own request, but she's running out of time and all she wants is to spend as much of it with her big brother as she can. She doesn't realize how her life can change so many others' when she goes to McKinley, too.
1. I'll Be OK

I lied.

I was a dirty, sneaky, lying little bastard when I told him I'd head straight to school, thanks for the toast, and don't let Mrs. Collins run you over, crazy old lady. And he'd just smiled at me.

"Pagan."

"You'll be late."

"Pagan."

"Blaine."

And he left. 

Whatever possessed me to go behind his back, to follow him as he followed his boyfriend back to the nightmare-inducing hellhole affectionately termed "public school", I'll never exactly know, but despite how much I detested the idea of attending classes with cookie-cutter stereotypes and cliques cut out from magazine pages, I had the motivation. I can't say I had an outcome in mind, an end to work towards, or anything at all to finish with, because that was really the whole reason.

Time.

The only thing I wanted, for every Christmas, birthday, and random holiday I stumbled across, every time I blew out a candle, or brushed an eyelash off my cheek, I wished for a year. A month. A week. I'd take anything, because any more time was more than I had, and that meant the world to me. So I pulled myself from Crawford Country Day, forged the signatures of my preoccupied parents, and submitted my transcripts to one McKinley Public High School.

I never said I was bright.

But the motivation was there. Because Blaine was there. And if Blaine was there, that meant that my best friend was there, my soul mate, my heart.

My brother.

I waited for his car to disappear around the corner at the end of the street before I raced outside, slamming the polished oak behind me and not caring at the way it made the windows on either side rattle as I went, and slid into my own car. My bag spilled onto the passenger seat, and I took a moment to queue up a playlist to listen to on the drive, because silence is too quiet, too perfect, and it always made me think, so I never did anything silently. Music playing, I pulled out of the long drive and crept down the street, forcing myself to drive exactly at the speed limit the whole way there to make sure I'd be one of the last people in. It worked. I parked at the exact back of the lot, scooped up my bag and dashed inside just as a bell pealed and echoed around in my skull, making my blood pound a bit harder behind my eyes.

I fell asleep in exactly three classes, daydreamed in the other four, and hid myself in the library during the lunch period, for once thankful I hadn't had an appetite in two years, and otherwise I'd have been starving. There, hunched against a metal rack of books, my nose affectionately pressed in the pages of _Macbeth_, I decided that maybe public school wasn't so bad if it meant my classes were miles behind where I was at Crawford, therefore letting me expend no excess energy on studying. I could focus on more important things. More fun things.

Because having fun is fun.

I once ran into a guy walking through the park after I tripped on a crack in the walk and he graciously broke my fall, letting the concrete break his. After we stood and brushed the dirt off, I apologized and told him my name. "Pagan." He said his name was Carl. I asked him if he was just out for a walk, or if he was headed somewhere, because when I crashed into him he looked determined, like he had someplace to be. He shook his head. "I guess I'm just walking, because I haven't anywhere to be," he said. "Oh," I said. And then I asked, "Are you lost?" He smiled at me and said, "I don't think so." "You're not sure?" "Well, if I was, I'm not anymore since you seem to have found me." I frowned. "But I wasn't looking for you." He smiled. "You don't have to be looking for someone to find them." I said, "Oh."

When I got home for lunch and Blaine asked me where I'd been, I told him I'd been looking for someone. "Did you find them?" he asked. "I think so," I nodded, "At least, he said I did." "Well that's good, then. No one likes to be lost," Blaine said, handing me a sandwich before he went to sit out in the living room to eat his. I took the sandwich and thought it might be nice to get lost for a while, because then if someone found you, that meant someone was looking for you, and doesn't everybody want to know that someone's looking for them? I took a bite of my sandwich.

So when someone almost tripped over me just as Lady Macbeth started screaming about spots, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and thanked them for finding me before I handed them the book and went back to class.

* * *

><p>Sitting in my last class that first day, having successfully managed to avoid Blaine, mostly due to the fact that he was a year ahead of me, but I liked to think myself part ninja, I decided that every clock in the school was set to go at half-speed during the final hour. Math classes tend to be dry to begin with, but when it's stuff you've sat through once already it becomes mocking in its tediousness, and every glance at the clock only seems to make it go slower. I pondered the meaning of time, does it pass differently for everyone, can two people experience the exact same moment but at different times, and just why does the clock get louder the slower it feels it's going? and almost missed the last bell. It wasn't until someone bumped into the corner of my desk that I realized we'd been released and I couldn't help the excitement bubbling up inside of me, because that meant I could have my fun that day, while at the same time I prayed that Blaine wouldn't slaughter me. Then I realized that praying was kind of pointless because I was atheist, so I made a wish on a speck of dust that floated by while I walked to my locker that Blaine wouldn't decide I wasn't worth it anymore, and then I laughed because I knew he'd never think that, so I took my wish back and put it in my back pocket for later. You never know when you're going to need to make a wish.<p>

Pretending to be busy just to waste time is so much more difficult than actually being busy, I discovered as I lingered at my locker, waiting desperately for the halls to clear out, thankful that my locker was well away from both Blaine and the choir room. I had no doubt that he'd have heard about there being a transfer student, because I heard at least seven people whisper to their friends as I passed between classes today about me, but that didn't worry me because no one knew my name yet. In fact it excited me more, so when the halls were finally empty I nearly bounced across the school to the choir room I'd heard Blaine talk so much about at home. I paused outside the door and waited until I heard the teacher call them to order and wait for the buzzing of chatter to quiet down, and when I saw him get ready to speak again, I tossed the door open and sauntered inside, dropping my bag onto the top of the piano and reveling in the sight of Blaine slack-jawed.

I wished I had a camera.

"Is it too late to audition?"

And before anyone could do or say anything, I snatched up an acoustic guitar and slung it over my shoulders, tuning it up as I dragged a stool front and center with my foot, hopping and tuning and dragging until everything was where I wanted it to be and sat down. A quick strum through the progressions, and I started.

"_Tuesday came and I feigned happy._

_ I'm so lonely here._

_ This thing between my lungs is_

_ Making me so tired._

_ It's bleeding me."_

I glanced up to find them all staring at me in wonder, and briefly imagined turkeys drowning themselves in rainfall by staring upwards open-mouthed.

I kept singing.

"_You know me and how I hate this,_

_ We've said enough for now._

_ Although it's been three hours,_

_ We haven't spoken at all._

_ Inside this empty cabinet,_

_ Nothing shines in here._

_ On the edge of night, we look down on our streets and houses._

_ You felt sick, so I drove back._

_ And if we go back to stars, we won't need any money-_

_ We won't need these poor hearts."_

Blaine looked at me somewhere between confusion and fury and awe as I strummed through a quick instrumental and tried to tell him with my eyes that I'd explain, that I'm OK, but I don't think he heard me because he blinked.

"_This crowd incites my riots,_

_ I'll try to calm them down._

_ Criminals compound my weakness,_

_ I'm barely hanging on._

_ They're bleeding me._

_ Why can't I feel it?_

_ Nothing hurts down here._

_ On the edge of night, we look down on our streets and houses._

_ You felt sick so I drove back._

_ And if we go back to stars, we won't need any money-_

_ We won't need these poor hearts."_

I think I shocked them because nobody moved while I put the guitar and stool back, scooped my bag up off the piano, and went to claim the seat next to Blaine, sitting down heavily and crossing my legs. Blaine let out a sharp bark of laughter and slung his arms around my shoulders and it slapped everyone else back to their senses because suddenly they were all talking really loudly at me and I'm not even sure it was all in English. Finally they shut up as the teacher clapped his hands and raised an eyebrow at me in question, staring pointedly at Blaine's arm around me and my head on his shoulder.

"Pagan," I stated. "Pagan Anderson."

I think I broke them.

Especially Kurt. He looked like someone kicked sand in his eyes and stole every pair of Doc Martens right out of his closet and used his Toms to scrape gum off the undersides of benches, which I would be upset about, too, because really? But considering he just realized his boyfriend neglected to tell him about his "Irish twin" sister, I decided he had every right to look like that and gave Blaine a look to say "You can tell him, if you want, because I know you do and he needs to know, and I'm okay with it, honest," and I guess he got the gist of it because he nodded and frowned a little. I poked him between the eyes to remind him about wrinkles and he smiled again, laughing a bit and reaching out to hold Kurt's hand. I saw him squeeze it and I knew that he'd just told Kurt "I'm sorry, I'll tell you everything, I love you", because I'd said it the exact same way to Blaine before.

I kicked my own pair of white Doc Martens off and folded my legs up under myself on the chair as Mr. Schuester asked us to wait a moment while he went through some sheet music, so I picked idly at the fabric of my burgundy jeans and waited until someone behind me said "Your socks don't match."

I shrugged. "I know."

"Why?"

"Does there have to be a reason?" I wondered why everything needed to be validated, why can't people do things just to do them anymore?

"Just curious," he said.

"Why are you sitting forward in your chair instead of back?" I tried to raise an eyebrow at him, but it didn't work so I just raised both and squinted my eyes a bit in question. I think he understood.

"Because I want to," he replied, but it sounded like a question, and he ran his hand through his hair in confusion.

I nodded as if that explained everything, because it did, really, but he just looked more confused and Blaine poked me to talk to him, so I sighed and turned around, stretching my legs and wiggling my toes.

"People worry too much about having socks that match," I tried to explain. It made sense in my head, but Blaine helped me learn when I was younger that maybe not everybody thought about things the same way I did, so I shouldn't get upset when people got frustrated talking to me, which happened a lot, but never with Blaine, because he understood all of me. "When you do your laundry, and you go to put it all away, every once in a while you find that you managed to lose one sock, and then after you spend the whole day looking for it and can't find it, you're upset and angry and it ruins what might have been a good day because now you have one sock that doesn't have a match, and I don't understand why it's so important when usually people don't see socks, anyway, and really, if people care so much what _socks _you're wearing, then I'm not sure their priorities are very straight at all." I took a breath. "So I just don't bother."

They all stared at me, or maybe there was something behind me, but when I turned to check there wasn't anything interesting back there so I assumed they really were all staring at me, but I was used to it by then. I waited a minute.

Two minutes.

I decided that no one was going to say anything, so I turned to face the front of the room again and curled my legs back up onto the chair underneath me, laced my fingers together and placed my hands in my lap, waiting for the lesson to begin.

Blaine told me later that I was very good at first impressions. I asked him why and he said because I had a point of view and I wasn't afraid to share it. So then I asked what would be the point in having a point of view, anyway, if I didn't share it? to which he replied "I guess there wouldn't be", and I asked, "Is that your point of view?" and he shrugged and said he'd never thought about what his point of view on points of view was.

"Maybe you should think about it, then."

"Maybe I should."

He came into my room just before I went to bed and said that his point of view was that a point of view would be pointless if it wasn't expressed, and he proceeded to point out his point of view on every single thing in my room until I was laughing too hard to hear him, so I threw pillows at him until he left, laughing just as hard as me.

I loved my brother.

So much.

* * *

><p>The next morning I woke up and frowned.<p>

When I went into the kitchen to find Blaine making eggs and toast for us, I told him "Bad day," and he just nodded and said "OK", because every once in a while I'd wake up and just _know _that I wasn't going to be having a very fun day. I wouldn't want to talk to anyone, I'd spend as much time as possible as alone as possible, because sometimes that's all I needed, but a lot of times nobody else could tell and they'd insist on being near me, and I would feel awful because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but that's exactly what would have happened if I'd opened my mouth. The pills were supposed to help, but sometimes I wondered if they gave me the right ones because I never really felt much different, but Blaine always made me take them, so I took a pill.

At school I did my best to avoid having to talk with anyone, but apparently once you're in Glee Club every single one of them suddenly becomes your best friend and so they all tried to get me in a conversation, and I felt like a jackass for feigning sick and running away to the nurse so that they couldn't follow me. Turns out I wasn't lying because the second I got there I felt so bad I had to bolt through the tiny office to the bathroom in the back and spent the next half hour crouched on the bathroom floor, shaking in spasms and choking up mouthful after mouthful of bile. It got so bad that I didn't even remember where I was until I felt something warm behind me and opened my eyes to a dim ceiling.

"Don't move," Blaine whispered from behind me, and I wondered how he knew, but then I vaguely remembered gasping out his name in between the horrible cramping pains while the nurse fluttered helplessly around me.

Then I gasped. "Do they know?"

I felt him shake his head because I was leaning against his chest as he sat propped up on the wall, and we both were sitting on one of those uncomfortable doctor-beds, and he had his chin resting on the top of my head so I felt it scratch back and forth against my hair.

"None of the students," he whispered, rubbing my arms because he knew how tense I'd get. "Of course, all of the teachers know, but I asked the Principal to make sure that none of them would ever talk about it, so none of the kids will know."

And then he said, "You're safe," and that made me so relieved that I slumped back against him and closed my eyes, exhausted, but he didn't let me sleep just yet. He felt my forehead for fever, but I guess I wasn't warm because he didn't make me take any pills, and then he checked my exposed arms for bruises and made me roll up my pants and shirt to check my legs and stomach. They were ugly and splotchy and purple and I hated them, but Blaine didn't judge me for them, ever, he just ran his hands gently over them and then pressed his lips to my temple and let me tug my shirt back down the cover them. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to hide the way my thumb was twitching, but I knew he saw.

"Pagan," he said.

"Blaine."

"_Pagan_."

"I'll be OK."


	2. Still and Silent

On my eighth birthday, which was Blaine's ninth, I sat at the island on a stool that was nearly as tall as I was and colored in a book of Disney princesses with Blaine while Anne, our nanny, made us pancakes for dinner, which was a special treat that only happened on our birthday.

"With blueberries?" I'd always ask.

"And chocolate chips?" Blaine would always ask.

"Of course," she would say with a smile and turn out pancake after pancake after pancake.

She'd make so many pancakes that she, Blaine and I would end up having to spend the next three days eating them for breakfast so that they didn't go to waste, and when I asked her why she made so many on my sixth birthday, she said that way it could feel like the birthday lasted longer, but really it only made me glad we made pancakes just once a year because after four days of them I started to hate them.

She cut up strawberries and bananas and piled them on top of my stack with just one spoonful of whipped cream to stand on it all, and on Blaine's she dropped a few more chocolate chips and some kiwi slices with a bit of honey.

"Why are mom and dad never home on our birthday?" I asked that morning, cutting carefully into my pancakes, trying not to topple the mountain of fruit on top, but I failed, and strawberries cascaded to my plate.

"Your parents are very busy," Anne said, cleaning up the counter and gesturing at me to eat some more, but my curiosity and childish determination outweighed my hunger.

"But it's not like the day changes," I argued, "why don't they ever stop being busy for us?"

Anne sighed and pretended to be really interested in scrubbing out the pan, but I knew by then that that was because she was thinking really hard about what to say to me, so I prepared to wait it out, put down my fork, and folded my hands on the counter in front of me. I looked to my right and saw Blaine pushing a bit of kiwi around in a drizzle of honey, and he looked sort of really sad and I knew it was my fault, so I made a mental note to let him sing into my hairbrush later, because that always made him feel better. Plus, he could sing really well, so I probably would have let him do that, anyway, even if I hadn't upset him, but I had. Maybe I'd let him pick out my clothes for school the next day, too, because he liked clothes, too.

"Your parents work so hard to give you nice things," Anne finally said, setting the pan in the draining board.

I looked around the large kitchen, I thought about my room with the canopy bed and flat screen TV, I thought about Blaine's piano and guitars and computer, and I thought that not one thing our parents ever bought us had arms to hug us with.

"They're never home," Blaine said quietly, and he abandoned his half-eaten breakfast entirely. "I don't think they even remember us sometimes."

Anne looked at us while I turned and took Blaine's hand because I knew how much he liked to be close to people, me especially, and he closed his eyes for a moment. I could tell he was trying really hard not to cry, because we were so close that sometimes I wondered if I could hear his thoughts, even though I knew that was silly, but most of the time I could just look at him and know what he was feeling. Right then he felt hurt. When he opened his eyes to look at me, I bet he saw me feeling the same thing, and that made me hurt more because _Blaine _was hurting.

"You're too young to look so sad." Anne whispered, but the room was so still and so silent that it rang out like a gunshot, and it made my ears ache.

Blaine frowned. "Kids can't be sad?"

That made me frown. "Why not?"

Anne just shook her head and cleared her throat just as the doorbell rang loudly in the front hall. We sat and listened to the sounds of Daniel, our butler, and also the guy that drove me and Blaine around everywhere and made sure we didn't get abducted at the mall or something, greeting whoever was on the other side and then the door closed again and he called out for us.

"Sounds like your presents are here!" Anne tried to be excited, but her smile reminded me more of someone experiencing appendicitis than of someone getting something really nice in the mail.

Regardless, Blaine and I dashed out the kitchen and into the front hall, still holding hands, to find Daniel waiting by a large box that sat on the pristine marble floor in the glow of the crystal chandelier above our heads. We bounced and waited and gasped as Daniel sliced open the cardboard and dug out two smaller, brightly-colored packages and handed them to us with a grin and pats on the head. We dropped right to the floor and tore at the wrapping paper. Despite our lingering upset at our parents' failed presence for yet another birthday, they never failed to send us something really expensive and usually foreign, from whatever country they happened to be in at the moment, typically, which lessened the hurt but the cut still oozed under the band-aid.

Identical cards fell out of our wrappings, generic "Happy Birthday!" cards, signed with a simple "Love, Mom and Dad" written below and each revealing a hefty dose of spending money on the inside. After making Daniel promise to take us shopping later, we dove into our presents proper, and Blaine gasped as he held out book after book of music for him to learn on his piano and guitars, followed by enough recording equipment, including industrial headphones and a microphone, to set up his own studio if he wanted. I turned to my own box and popped it open, peering inside at the contents. I dug out another box and my eyes nearly bugged out of my skull as the picture of a professional sewing machine stared back at me from the side of the box. Sixty-three stitches, four buttonholes, LCD screen, and a dozen other things my eight-year-old mind could only vaguely process, bombarded as it was. I turned my gaze hungrily to Blaine, who gasped and suddenly looked fearful for himself as he clutched at his clothes.

"No way, Pagan," he growled at me, gathering up his books to stack in a neat pile.

"Relax," I assured him, bringing out a case of thread and bobbins from the bottom of the box, "I won't touch the clothes you already have." I held out a tape measure, "But I will need to measure them."

He looked wary, but then he smiled. "You're gonna be awesome at that."

I only smiled. Sure, our parents may not be around much, but somehow they always knew exactly what to get us. I often wondered if maybe Anne or even David sent them letters or called them to give them heads-up on things like this, because even though Blaine and I get to chat with them a few times a week on speakerphone, sometimes I don't think they really listen to us because they say "Uh-huh" and "Yeah" a lot, and then the next time we call they don't remember what we talked to them about so they just keep asking us "What's new?"

So when Daniel took us out later and Blaine bought a new case for one of his guitars and I bought enough fabric and trims and buttons to overflow my desk, I figured that at least we have this much of them, and that's enough.

Right?

* * *

><p>The day after my second day at McKinley was a Wednesday, so, naturally, I woke up to see the edge of the post-it note that was stuck to my forehead. I grinned and tore it off, springing out of bed, and my eyes found the trail of obnoxiously neon squares that led in swirling patterns around my room and out my closed door. I stepped carefully, following the trail exactly until I must have walked around my room a dozen and a half times before it finally swirled out my door and down the hall. They curled and twisted and dove and bent down the marble of the hall, and my bare feet shivered but I ignored it, trying hard not to get dizzy as I toed down the path, twirling and twisting and curling through the quiet house. Down the stairs, zig-zag through the front hall, and then doubling back to take me past the sitting room and dining room to the formal living room, where once a year dad and his stuffed suits would smoke cigars until the air turned gray and hazy and I imagined great smoky dragons frothing out from the mist. Finally, finally, I spun and the trail ended with a single note stuck on the wall between two paintings by contemporary artists that I never bothered to learn the names of.<p>

"SESQUIPEDALIANISM" read the note.

I snorted.

After I'd showered and dressed, I followed the notes in a more abbreviated pattern back downstairs and then abandoned it entirely to flounce into the kitchen, boots squeaking on the tile over to where Blaine sat at the same counter we'd been sitting at every morning for as long as I could remember. He had a little smile on his face that got bigger when he saw me grinning at him as Anne slid a bowl of apple slices in front of me, quickly followed by a much smaller bowl with a scoop of peanut butter in it.

"I take it you liked today's word?" he asked around a mouthful of cereal.

"I've always known you were a sesquipedalianist," I retorted, dunking the end of an apple slice into the peanut butter, "otherwise, I don't think you would have come up with this little ritual."

He laughed and sipped his orange juice. "We've been doing this for a year and I realized just this morning that I haven't used that word yet." He shook his head in wonder.

"Maybe we're just running out of words," I mused, scooping up more peanut butter with another apple.

"Well, until we truly do run out, you'll have to find something kick-ass for next week," he challenged, draining his bowl of excess milk and wiping up his chin.

Twelve months previously, after That Dark Day when we found out that my life would honestly never ever be the same again, Blaine woke me up the next day, a Wednesday, with a fantastic sticky-note trail that took me on a spontaneous journey through the house. He walked it with me, the both of us trying so hard not to actually step on the notes, but they were so close together it was nearly impossible, so we ended up tripping over each other more than once and by the end of it we were both laughing so hard I felt like I would never breathe properly again, but at the same time I thought that I wouldn't mind so much if it meant I was laughing with Blaine for the rest of my life. At the end of that trail he'd tacked a note up on the wall, and that one little word meant more to me than anything he'd ever spoken aloud, than any hug or whispered "I love you", than any fancy German DVD player sent by our parents.

"COURAGE"

I'd cried so hard that Anne made me and Blaine stay home from school, which I found out later she'd planned to do, anyway, and, in fact, she'd already pulled us for the rest of that week. We spent five days underneath a fort of blankets and pillows, propped up by the dining room chairs that we'd dragged into the sitting room, watching movies on Blaine's laptop, eating crap and alternately crying and sleeping and trying so hard not to be fourteen and fifteen because, all of a sudden, we had to be so much older, but we had no idea how. The following Wednesday I woke up extra-extra early and laid my own trail, trying to make it artistic as well as perplexing, hoping Blaine appreciated my paper-laying skills, and when he got to the end of it he found, on three and a half post-it notes:

"P.S. I LOVE YOU"

He'd stared at it for so long I thought he was mad at me, but when he turned around and I saw the tears running down his face, my heart crashed to the pit of my stomach and shattered into pieces that pierced me from the inside out. He grabbed me and hugged me to him and cried and I felt like he'd never let me go, which I wouldn't have minded one bit because he was my favorite place in the whole world.

It became a tradition after that, so every Wednesday we alternated, one of us leaving an obnoxious paper trail for the other to follow to discover an equally obnoxious word that we _had _to use in conversation at least three times that day, within hearing of the other, otherwise the game would be lost and they'd get to go again next week.

"I sort of hope we do get to run out of words," I said before I really thought about it, and I watched Blaine set his glass down rather heavily, his face suddenly a bit darker than it had been a few seconds ago.

"I'm sorry," I tried to take it back.

"It's fine." He tried to smile.

"No it's not."

"Pagan."

"_Blaine_."

* * *

><p>At school that day Blaine told me that he was going to have Kurt over to talk to him, and I told him it was fine, and he said he wanted me to be there, too, "since it's your business, really, not mine", and he shrugged.<p>

"It's just as much your business," I countered, trying to catch his eyes, but they kept glancing off.

"No it's not," he said, "I'm not the one that has to deal with it."

"Bullshit," I told him, and stalked off to lunch without him.

He sat at one end of the table with Kurt and Finn and the other guys, and I sat at the other with Mercedes and the girls and tried so hard not to cry because my brother hadn't looked at me since that morning and it was my entire fault, and _why_? The pieces of my heart that I thought I'd picked up and taped back together started to crumble again, and I felt the old tears and cuts inside start to rip open and bleed sluggishly until I felt the pressure inside me about to burst, and it did, right in the middle of fifth period, right in front of everybody. I'd managed to make it to one of the trashcans, but only just, and I only vaguely heard the sounds of kids running out of the room as I heaved and my back bucked and my stomach clenched until I was sure I'd never be able to stand up again. My arms fell limp to my sides and my head hung over the lip of the can. When I felt someone trying to drag me away, it was all I could do to wrestle myself out of their grasp and get myself back on my knees on the floor in front of that glorious receptacle as another wave of vicious spewing wracked me from my very core, up and out. Eventually they had to bring a bucket for me to clutch at as they half-dragged me down to the nurse's office where I sat and spewed until my throat burned raw and I forgot what it felt like to be human.

Blaine came and collected me, gathered me into his car and drove me home, and it wasn't until I felt different hands pulling me out that I realized he'd brought Kurt, too, and that he was the one I was propped up against while Blaine opened doors on the way up to my room. He'd only just staggered me over the threshold when I felt another wave and bolted desperately, in a jerky sort of run, for my bathroom, collapsing boneless onto the freezing tiles, but they felt so good against my outrageously overheated legs.

I dimly heard Blaine ask Kurt to go and ask Anne for more blankets and for the bottle of green pills from the kitchen, before I felt his strong arms wrap around me from behind and pull me to his chest. He gently brushed my sweaty, sandy-blond hair off my forehead, murmuring into my ear as I felt a rushing all around me.

I felt disgusting. I felt horrid. I felt like anyone looking at me would be so absolutely repulsed by the frighteningly pale face, purple bruises under the eyes, bright red sclera, and the bones jutting out against skin that looks stretched too thin. Half the time I didn't even recognize myself, when I looked at pictures from two years prior compared to what I'd become.

Kurt came back and wordlessly handed Blaine the small orange bottle that rattled in that horribly familiar way before he crouched down next to us and whispered, so softly that I wondered if he thought the mere sound of his voice looked like it was enough to shatter me, "Tell me what I need to do."

Together, they hauled me up, all the way asking me if I was comfortable, if it was okay, if I wanted to do it myself. I wasn't comfortable, I hadn't been comfortable in years, I'd forgotten what it felt like, and I would've loved to have been able to raise my arms at all, but I felt so drained of everything, of life and strength and just _everything_, that all I could do was nod and shake my head so that they'd keep taking care of me.

They stripped my sweat-soaked clothes off my shivering body and Kurt ran back out to my room to grab a pair of pajamas after Blaine described where they were. While he was gone, Blaine ran a cloth under steaming water and I hissed when it touched my skin, but where he ran it I felt marginally less disgusting, so I let him finish wiping me down. He had me lean over the sink so he could douse my hair in warm water and give it a quick shampoo before that was rinsed out and then I was wrapped up in several large towels. Kurt came back and they both dried me off and dressed me, one of them holding me up while the other urged to lift my legs or arms so that my clothes could be slid into place.

I was past humiliated, I was past depressed, and I was so far past done with it all.

I'd learned quickly that my pride meant nothing anymore, that I was going to need more and more help as time went on, but it still hurt so much sometimes, and I could tell that it was only going to start hurting worse and worse.

They maneuvered me to my bed and Blaine gently cocooned me blankets until I couldn't even wiggle my toes, but I was warm, and he sat on the bed behind me, letting me curl up on his chest like he did every time, and I was content. I felt Kurt sit on the edge of the bed next to me and watched him place a tremulous hand on my arm. He looked sad. Maybe a bit broken. His grey-blue eyes, ones that looked startlingly like my own, were watery and shimmered in the light of the one lamp that glowed from my nightstand, and he turned those eyes in question to Blaine. I felt my brother inhale, long and deep, my entire torso rising with the action as his chest pressed against my back, and then he spoke.

"My sister has leukemia."


	3. Never Ever

For the four hours and eighteen minutes that Blaine and I both were 15, we sat side-by-side on the couch in the sitting room, our thighs pressed up together, our hands laced in between us. I leaned over and dropped my head onto his shoulder, and I heard him sigh.

"Stop thinking about it," I told him.

"I can't," was all he said.

It was only a few weeks after That Dark Day, and I kept telling him to forget about it, just for that day, so that maybe we could both be happy, because who knows when we'll get to be happy again? but he was always so stubborn.

I glanced at the clock. 10:28. Twenty-one minutes until Blaine turned sixteen and he became an entire year away from me again. We'd already had slices out of my birthday cake at precisely 6:31 that evening, and then settled in to wait for Blaine's turn. Up until I was five or six I hated that Blaine and I shared a birthday. I hated that he was a whole year older than me, anyway, and then I had to go and split my one special day with him? My only consolation was that I was, technically, born four hours and eighteen minutes before he was, so we always celebrated my birthday first, even though I was a whole year younger.

I stopped caring when I realized that sharing a birthday with the most incredible person I'd ever met, my brother, even though we weren't proper twins, was kind of amazing.

He nudged my shoulder with his and whispered into the quiet room: "Will you promise me something?" "Maybe," I told him. "Promise me you won't ever give up." I felt like crying. "I can't."

10:34

"Why not?" he asked me, and I could hear every thread of hurt in his voice.

"Please don't ask me to do that," I begged.

"I don't understand, Pagan."

"_Please_."

10:37

"Promise me that, no matter what happens, you won't stop fighting this," he pressed, and I knew he was desperate, clutching at any straw he could see, even if it was out of his reach.

"I can't," I was very nearly crying, "I _can't_."

10:45

"Please tell me _why_, Pagan," and I knew he really was crying. "Swear you won't be mad at me?" I had to make sure. "Never." "Ever?" "Never ever."

"Because I don't want to disappoint you."

10:49

"Happy birthday, Blaine."

I kissed his cheek. It tasted like tears.

* * *

><p>I thought I'd never see someone as sad as Blaine had been that day, until I looked up at Kurt after Blaine spoke and his eyes were so wide, and the water flowing down his cheeks came so fast that my heart hurt, it <em>hurt<em> inside me, and I wondered if this wouldn't break him.

I watched him cry as he looked between us for what felt like hours, even though the cacophonous chiming from the grandfather clock in the grand hall downstairs told me it had only been twenty minutes, at most. But still. Watching someone's heart break over and over, as they realized again and again that one of the people in front of them was dying, and the other had to watch it happen, was enough to make my own heart break. Again.

I didn't think there were any pieces big enough left to break anymore.

Blaine ran his fingers through my slightly wavy, shoulder- length, dirty blond hair, so different from his that sometimes I hated it, it took me farther away from him, but he always told me he was jealous of how soft it was so I stopped hating it for a while. His own dark curls felt rough beneath my fingers, even the calloused ones, but it was so _Blaine _that I never once hated them.

"Why?" Kurt choked out, and it was hardly more than a whisper when he said it.

I didn't have to look up at Blaine to know he'd closed his honey-brown eyes, because I knew that he needed to gather his thoughts a bit before telling Kurt exactly why he never mentioned me, and he always closed his eyes when he thought.

When he didn't open his eyes to speak for several minutes, I figured maybe he needed a push.

"I told him not to," I broke the silence, and my voice sounded strangely amplified in my room.

"But _why_?" Kurt repeated, and Blaine finally moved. He tugged Kurt down so that he was lying on his side next to Blaine, one of his arms resting across Blaine's chest to reach over and trace his fingers across my cheek. I'd known Kurt all of four days and I already felt more connected to him than anyone besides Blaine. Maybe it was because Blaine would always talk about him, come home and tell me stories about things Kurt said or things Kurt did or "And the way he laughs, Pagan, _God_, I could listen to it for _days_." And when Kurt stroked his thumb across the purple bruise beneath my eye, I completely understood why Blaine loved him so much.

"I wanted Blaine to have his own life so that when..."I had to swallow really hard because I felt like throwing up again, "when it happens, he'll be able to move on."

Kurt just looked at me, more tears cascading down across his face, the odd angle making them run under his nose to collect on Blaine's shirt, but neither of them cared. I flicked open my envelope of blankets and wiggled a bit so that they stretched to cover all three of us, snuggled down into my grey comforter as we were.

"I didn't want people to know about me so that I couldn't hurt anyone that didn't have to be hurt," I kept speaking, finding it easier to talk to the edge of the blankets than to either pair of eyes.

Blaine continued to stroke through my hair because he knew how much it calmed me, made me forget sometimes that I was hurting, helped me remember that he'd always be there, no matter what.

"Hey, Blaine?" I asked softly, breathing against his chest. "Yeah?" "I'm thirsty." His hand paused in my hair, and I knew that he knew what I wanted, so he said "OK," and, after much wiggling by all three of us, managed to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs and blankets we'd become.

"I'll be back in a flash," he said, dropping kisses onto both my and Kurt's foreheads before he walked heavily out of the room.

I spent a minute just looking at Kurt while he looked at me, both of us resting our heads against my mountain of pillows. His eyes were red around the edges, he looked like he was having a little trouble breathing, and I hated that it was my fault he was hurting like that.

"Hey, Kurt?" I asked. "Yeah?" "You love my brother, right?" "More than anything." "Good."

We lapsed back into silence for a moment, and even though I knew probably everything about Kurt from what Blaine had told me, he knew absolutely nothing about me, and yet, there he was, his thumb still brushing gently across my cheek in a comforting gesture. It made me want to cry again, but I was so tired of crying, so tired of _feeling _half the time that I would have given everything for it all to be over, but thinking like that scared me more than anything, scared me right out of feeling like crying.

"Will you take care of him?" I asked, and when Kurt looked confused, I went on. "Because he's been taking care of me for two years, and I see how exhausted he gets, and I hate that I'm doing this to him. He's going to need someone to make sure he eats, make sure he goes to school and keeps up with his singing, because he can't ever stop singing, you know? I didn't want anyone to know about me so that when I'm not here anymore, they won't be missing anything. But Blaine will be. And he won't be right for a while, but I think he could be in time, and I'm so happy that he has you, Kurt, because the way he talks about you makes it sound like you're gravity, you're such a part of him. He's going to need you. And I need to know that you'll let him need you. That you'll remind him that he needs _someone_."

And damn it if I didn't make Kurt cry again, but I was crying, too, even though I really didn't want to because it made me so incredibly _tired_, but I couldn't help it when I looked at his face and he looked like he might never be happy again. I didn't mean to do that.

"I will never let him be anything less than alright," Kurt promised me, and my chest felt inflated, like the elephant that had been sitting on it for two years finally decided the grass really was greener on the other side and left to go make sure.

Blaine came back a minute later, and when he saw that we were both crying again, he didn't say anything, he just lifted us both up so that were cradled against his chest, and we just sat there for ages, crying and sniffling and trying to hold each other up, but it was really hard when each of us only wanted to fall down.

* * *

><p>I was nine when I watched Peter Pan for the first time, and I decided in that moment that I would never grow up, that I would stay a kid forever, because wouldn't that be awesome?<p>

"You can't stop growing old, Pagan," Blaine burst my bubble, but later that night, while I was trying to go to sleep, I decided he was right, but not entirely.

I rolled out of bed, tiny feet slapping on the marble floors as I ran across my room, threw open the large door and bolted down the hall for Blaine's, leaping into his bed once I'd charged into his dark room. He yelped and threw pillows at me, but I caught them all and smacked them back at him, and we started laughing until Anne told us to shut up and go to bed, but before she made me go back to my own room, I looked down at Blaine and said, "Maybe I can't stop growing old, but I can stop growing _up_," and then I left.

The next morning at breakfast Blaine asked me why I didn't want to grow up if I was going to get old, anyway.

"Because this way I can grow old without getting hurt," I explained. "You can't grow old _and _grow up without getting hurt?" he asked. "Have you ever seen an adult that was happy _all _the time?" "No." "Exactly."

"Why do you think that is?" he wondered as we walked into school later that morning. "Why can't everybody just be happy?"

"Because bad things happen, Blaine," I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well, duh," he rolled his eyes back at me, "but just because one bad thing happens doesn't mean there aren't a million other things to be happy about."

"Maybe that one thing just hurts too much," I shrugged. "Maybe it hurts so much that it's all they can think about."

"What if something, just one thing, really bad happened to you?" he asked me as he opened his locker to stuff his backpack inside.

"Like what?" I asked. "Like if I died." I gaped at him, "Why would you say that?" He shrugged and said, "Just suppose." I thought about it. "I suppose I'd be confused." "Why?" "Because no matter how much I hurt or how much I'd miss you, I don't think I'd ever understand why it happened in the first place."

He said, "Oh."

"Yeah."

* * *

><p>It started getting dark outside and Kurt had to get home or else his dad would worry about him, so we all stood on legs that felt too weak to be able to stand straight, but they did, and we said goodbye. Blaine hugged him long and hard, and I felt like I was intruding on something, even though they were just standing there. Then they parted and Kurt looked at me like he was thinking really hard about something before he grabbed my arms and yanked me into his chest, knocking the wind out of me in a hug so strong I'd never felt so loved in my life, except when I was with Blaine. And then, before I could fully appreciate what was happening, I felt the gentle touch of his kiss, right on my mouth. It was swift and it was platonic, but it said "I'm here", and I didn't realize until after he'd left with the promise to call as soon as he got home that I should have made my lips say "Thank you," but I was feeling too overwhelmed at knowing there was one more person in my life to be able to process much of anything as it happened.<p>

I didn't want to be alone that night, and neither did Blaine, so we dragged out our old fort and piled into it, dimming the lights in the sitting room until they were just a soft glow, like candlelight. My thumb twitched against the back of his hand as he held mine, which made him hold it tighter. He spoke to Kurt for almost an hour when he called, a hushed, mostly silent conversation that I tuned out to give them privacy. But Blaine didn't seem to care because he snuggled closer to me and practically held the phone between our ears so that I could hear Kurt's soft, musical voice floating through the tiny speakers.

I didn't listen to what he was saying, I was too tired, so I closed my eyes and let the murmuring of my brother and his boyfriend rock me to sleep faster than any cradle could have.

Kurt spent almost the entire weekend at our house.

He woke up before either me or Blaine on Saturday morning and helped Anne make breakfast: crepes with bananas and strawberries, pancakes, porridge, eggs, bacon, toast and butter and jam. After a frantic Blaine woke me up at nearly seven-thirty, we found him covered head-to-toe in flour, standing in the middle of our basement kitchen, about to take up a groaning platter of dishes.

"I thought we'd eat in the den," he said with a shrug, and Blaine sagged in relief against me while I tried not to laugh.

It was easy to not feel like laughing when I glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall.

"Shit."

Blaine looked at me in concern and I pointed to the bright blue sharpie that circled the next day, "CHEMO" written across it in an equally bright, offensive green that I only used because I thought it would be funny, considering how the treatments made me feel.

"Shit," Blaine echoed. "I completely forgot."

"I'm not hungry," I stated and crawled into the dumbwaiter. "Meet you upstairs?"

Blaine nodded, slid the door shut, and hit the button, but not before telling me to pick a movie, and to make it good.

Kurt and Blaine sent up the food to me after I'd crawled out and dropped the tiny elevator back down to the kitchen, so I grabbed it up and laid it on the low table in the den. I dug through the bookshelf stacked three-deep with slim cases and pulled out Peter Pan, setting it triumphantly into the player just as the boys walked in carrying an assortment of drinks. Blaine handed me a glass of orange juice with a not-so-subtle quirk of his eyebrow that said "It would make me feel better if you did," so I did. I even managed a few strawberries and that made him beam at me.

"You can stay with Kurt tomorrow, if you want," I told Blaine as Peter noticed the rising water from where he stood on the rock with Wendy.

"No way am I making you sit in that room alone," Blaine stated emphatically while Kurt nodded.

"But-"

"No."

"I'm a big girl."

"You just rode in a dumbwaiter, Pagan. You're not very big."

"Blaine."

"_Pagan_."

Peter grabbed the kite and tried to get Wendy to take it, but she kept refusing to leave him alone to face his own demise.

"You can come if you want, Kurt," I all but whispered.

"Are you sure?" he asked, reaching out to grasp my hand tightly.

"You should know what you're getting yourself into," I tried to smile, but it mostly just hurt.

"Of course I'll be there."

I nodded my thanks, grateful that he didn't cringe or try to run away, because he was about to see me at my absolute worst.

_To die will be an awfully big adventure._


	4. London Calling

Blaine came out to me when he was thirteen, but it took him an entire year before he managed to stutter out a confession to our parents the moment they'd tripped inside, just off a plane coming back from the Philippines, at near midnight, half-asleep and irritable. He'd stood in the entryway, watched them pile their bags inside the door with Daniel's help, and then our father had straightened up, asked us what we were doing out of bed, and Blaine had squeaked out those two condemning words before he dashed up to his room, me chasing after him.

We're not sure exactly what happened after that, because it seemed like our parents did their level best to brush off the incident the next day, smiling around their coffee and "Would you pass the toast, Blaine, dear?" like Blaine hadn't just handed them his heart and the knife that could puncture it. But after nearly a week of this strained normalcy we realized that they probably figured Blaine had been sleep walking, or pulling a prank, or simply trying to vex them, because they never said a word about it. I couldn't take it. I paced around the house, willing them to become less dense, angry at them and at myself because part of me wanted it to continue, wanted things to just stay _safe_, but then I hated _them _because once they realized that it wasn't a prank, things would stop being safe.

Blaine was supposed to be Dad. He was going to inherit the business, hell if I knew what it was, but that was what he was born to do, according to our father, and our grandfather, and our great-grandfather, and all the rest of them. I'd never had the same pressure put on me that Blaine had, not even close, because Blaine was their son, the heir, the one to carry on the good name of Anderson and have baby Andersons with his new Anderson wife, and once our parents knew that they would never get that, they wouldn't need Blaine anymore, Anderson or not.

One afternoon the following week, after Blaine and I had sat down and explained to our parents that Blaine really was gay and, oh, there go all your hopes and dreams, sorry about that, I was lying on a couch in the room that Blaine and I called "The Legacy". It was a room solely devoted to paintings of our family, stretching back more generations than I could bother to count, rows of Andersons immortalized above fancy leather couches and crystals of whiskey. I had my legs draped up over the back of the couch, my torso resting on the seat cushion and my head nearly hanging off the front as I stared up, hands folded on my stomach, at the most recent painting.

"I hate this picture," Blaine stated, flipping himself onto the couch and wiggling until he was next to me, his feet hooked over mine and his goofy grin inches from my face.

"Why's that?"

"Would you enjoy looking at a picture and knowing that you were going to become the person in it?" Blaine scoffed, staring up at our father's oil-rendered face.

"You will never be him."

Blaine laughed. "Not now, certainly, now that they're desperately hoping that cousin Callum is up to par on his business studies so that the legacy might not crumble entirely at the hands of their very queer son."

"You know you're better than that, Blaine," I reprimanded him gently, even though I knew he needed to vent, because it hurt me to hear him talk about himself like he was less than a person.

"All I know is that now that both of their children are broken beyond repair, I don't think they'll be home at all," and Blaine looked so much sadder than a fourteen-year-old really should have to ever look, and I understood what Anne had said on my eighth birthday.

The doctors found my leukemia when I was thirteen, just months before Blaine came out, and while my parents never really had any expectations of me in the first place, finding out that I was sick thoroughly convinced them that I was the next best thing to useless. Still, they paid for my treatment and radiation and all the pills I'd need as the doctors tried to push it into remission.

"Like they're ever here to begin with," I murmured, closing my eyes and feeling my blood pound vigorously against my skull with the awkward position.

"At least I don't really look like him," Blaine mused, and it was true. Our father had brown eyes, sure, but Blaine's were half a dozen other colors, as well, and so much brighter. Blaine's hair was curly and unruly and free, while our father's was blonde and straight and rigid, and Blaine had a sharper jaw, a smaller nose, larger eyebrows. They really looked nothing alike, and I know Blaine took refuge in that fact.

"No, you look more like Grandma, like Nonna," I sniggered at him, and he shoved his shoulder into mine playfully, but still with some force, and he hissed when I grunted.

"Shit, Pagan, I'm so sorry, I for-" he looked physically pained that he could possibly forget that I was ill, the I had 'FRAGILE' stamped across my forehead now, but I almost felt flattered that he hadn't really stopped thinking of me any differently. I was still, above all else, Pagan. Just Pagan.

"It's fine, Blaine, promise," I grinned at him.

"Let me see," he whispered, and I frowned. "No." "Why not?" I rolled off the couch and stood much too quickly, my head spun sickeningly and I squeezed my eyes shut tight to block out the suddenly moving faces that surrounded me. "It's ugly," I whispered, my eyes still shut, trying to find a balance, and then I heard him slide off the couch and felt his hand on my back.

I kept my eyes closed as his hand trailed up to the collar of my t-shirt and then around to my shoulder. I breathed slowly as he gently tugged my sleeve up to reveal the no doubt already purpling bruise marring my skin.

They were everywhere. All over me. The worst one was on my side, splattered over my ribs and running down to curl around my hip, all because I slipped in the shower and bumped into the wall. It was large and splotchy and a fierce red before it mellowed out into the blue-purple it had been for weeks. It had only just started to turn the healing yellow-green around the edges.

Blaine's fingers traced the mark on my shoulder while I tried to number every bruise on my body. I'd never told Blaine exactly how many I had, he only knew of the ones on my arms and my calves, really, and I refused to tell him about the one on my side because he would all but strap me to a chair for the rest of my life if only to stop me from getting hurt.

I loved him, honest, but sometimes I just couldn't handle him.

He kissed the mark and rolled my sleeve back down, so I opened my eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, and in his voice I heard "I'm sorry you're sick, that I couldn't protect you from this, that our parents think they've raised defective children, because you don't deserve this, neither of us do, and I'm just _sorry_," and I nodded because it was true.

"Me too."

* * *

><p>We finished breakfast and the movie in a near silence and Anne came up to take all the dishes away while all but prodding us up off the floor with the threat of housework if we didn't do something outside, at least for a while. So we reluctantly dressed and trooped out the back door onto the stone patio, Blaine and I discussing what we could do while Kurt went to sit near one of the rose bushes that he so loved. Blaine finally gave in to me and agreed to play one-on-two tennis, with me and Kurt on one side, and him on the other.<p>

"Let me know if you get tired, Pagan, and we can go inside," he warned me, plucking rackets out of the bin next to the bench and passing them around.

"I'll be fine, Blaine," I rolled my eyes at Kurt and he sniggered, having been, I'm sure, on the receiving end of Blaine's perhaps over-enthusiastic nurturing on one or more occasions, as well.

"Besides," I continued, idly bouncing a ball into the air with my racket, "if I recall, I was the one that slaughtered you in singles at camp three years ago."

"Fluke," Blaine retorted, pointing his racket at me with a glare. "I'd twisted my ankle the day before and wasn't up to par."

"Sure."

"Want me to kiss your bruised ego better?" Kurt smirked.

"Shut up and serve."

We played for over an hour, and when it got a bit much for me, Kurt surprised us both by holding his own spectacularly, even though he confessed to never having picked up a racket before. I watched from the bench, huddled up in Blaine's too-big jacket, as they served and volleyed, the both of them moving around the court with a grace I didn't think men could possess. For one brief moment, when Kurt dived for the ball and missed, crashing into the harsh court, and Blaine rushed to his side to help him up, I could see everything they were, everything they are, and all that they'd become, and it made me both incredibly happy and overwhelmingly sad. Blaine looked down at Kurt, cradled his face in his hands and kissed his nose so sweetly it was barely there, the look on his face the gentlest I'd ever seen it, every facet open and waiting for Kurt to crawl in and make himself at home in that space between Blaine's lungs.

I almost didn't hear when they came up to me and asked if I wanted to go back inside, it felt like I'd shoved my fingers in my ears, pressed clouds against my eardrums, and it took almost a full minute of intense concentration on my part and Blaine's hand against my neck before my feet touched ground again.

"Jesus, Pagan, you're burning up, why didn't you tell me?" Blaine scolded me, slid my arms through the sleeves of his jacket and zipped it up as Kurt draped his over my shoulders, too.

They half-carried me back into the house, even though I was perfectly capable of walking, but they didn't pay any attention to me, which I found both endearing and contradictory. Kurt settled me on the couch in the den while Blaine dashed off to grab my pills and some water and then he was pressing both into my hands with firm orders to take them and "Don't move, Christ, you need to rest," when I tried to sit up. I scowled at him but he just smiled and kissed my forehead.

"Suck it up, Jack," he teased me, but I was too tired to retaliate so I closed my eyes.

"Jack?" I heard Kurt ask, and then I felt his hand tracing patterns against my too-warm cheek.

"Her middle name," Blaine explained as I felt him sit on the end of the couch near my feet. The weight of Kurt's fingers on my cheek disappeared and I heard shuffling at the end of the couch again. Curious, I cracked one eye open just enough to watch Kurt snuggle further into Blaine's lap.

I smiled and closed my eyes again.

"Her middle name is Jack?" Kurt questioned softly, and I could imagine him picking at Blaine's sleeve for lack of something to do, but couldn't bring myself to open my eyes.

"No, it's 'Jacki', but when we were kids and we'd spend summers with our Grandparents in London, the locals that got to know us started calling her 'Jack' all the time and it kind of stuck."

I could picture a small smile on Blaine's face as he thought of the two of us getting lost down cobblestoned streets and ending up spending an afternoon in a sweets shop until our Grandparents managed to track us down and scold us all the way home for not only getting lost, but also for eating our respective weights in candy and spoiling our dinner.

"So what's your middle name?" Kurt whispered.

"Blaine."

"You're kidding." I could hear the amusement in Kurt's voice. "You mean I don't even know your first name?"

"It's 'Henry', and before you get mad at me, I only didn't tell you because my full name is Henry Blaine Anderson the Third, and since I'll never be my father or his father, I don't want to be associated with them like that."

"Besides," I breathed, very nearly asleep, "Blaine is so much easier to nick-name. Blainey-bear when I was three, Blainey at five, Blainers around se-"

"He gets it, Pagan," Blaine interrupted me, and the sound of Kurt's laughter pitched me headfirst into my dreams.

I could picture them together forever.

* * *

><p>The summer between my fourth and fifth grade years, and Blaine's fifth and sixth grade years, back when teachers still called him "Henry" and we still had something of a family, we ended up staying in London with our Grandparents through the first semester of school. The system was different, Junior High didn't start until seventh grade, so Blaine and I attended at the same building, and we walked hand-in-hand into the gothic structure every single morning. Kids teased us for our accents, laughed when we talked about our small town, and whispered behind their hands at us when we sat by ourselves in the lunch room or under a tree in the courtyard.<p>

We both were always small. Blaine had a couple of inches on me, but he was still so much smaller than other boys our age, and while I loved it because that meant I didn't have to crane my neck to see his face, or stand on my tip-toes to hug him, other kids just saw it as weak. We weren't strangers to bullying. It didn't matter that Blaine didn't realize he was gay yet, it didn't matter that we didn't know I was sick yet; we were still shoved, harassed, called names, ostracized, criticized, minimized.

Blaine found me one day a week before the end of October curled up inside a janitor's closet on the far side of campus, well away from the central classes, in Building Three, which housed only the library and, as such, saw very little company from elementary minds. I didn't know what time it was, all I knew was that my hand hurt really bad but had thankfully stopped bleeding some time before, and that my throat burned raw from crying for so long. I flinched when the door swung open, slammed my back into the corner and drew my knees up to my forehead, pressed my face into my thighs to hide from the kids I thought were back for a second round. When I felt the gentle fingers in my hair and my brother's soft voice whispering into my ear, I flung myself forward and he dragged me out of the building.

It was dark.

The grounds were pitch black, the grass looked deadly covered in dew, and the hulking structures of our school sliced into the stars, hovering somewhere between space and earth, threatening to topple and crush us.

Blaine didn't let my hand go, not once, as we walked the three miles down to our Grandparents' estate, but he didn't say anything, either, at least not out loud, not until I squeezed his hand, _"I'm sorry, I'll tell you everything, I love you."_ He stopped walking, turned me to face him, and pressed his lips to my forehead, _"I'm here," _and then kept leading me home.

Nonna and Pappous leapt upon us when we stumbled through the kitchen door, each of them grabbing one of us up and squeezing tight, and then they traded, all the while speaking rapidly to the police officer in the corner who nodded, mumbled into his radio, and then left. I snuggled into my Pappous' arms, breathing in the scent of his cigars and the toffees he likes, and the peppermints he chews after dinner, before he set me down and exclaimed over my hand, promptly maneuvering me over to the sink to scrub out the dirt and tears from the wound across my palm. Blaine sat quietly at the table with Nonna, who stroked back his curly hair, so like her own, while Pappous muttered in Greek and bandaged my hand gently. He finished and handed me two cookies, letting me crawl into the seat next to Blaine to share one with him, and Nonna raised her eyebrow at us to say "Explain."

I told them about being chased after lunch, some sixth-grade boys with too much time on their hands, and I told them about one of them shoved me into a bank of lockers and the grate sliced my hand, and I told them how I was shoved into the closet, which they locked, and then I had nothing left to tell.

Blaine said he felt funny after lunch, said something didn't feel right in his next class, and when he went to my classroom to check on me I wasn't there, so he skipped his last class to look for me, but he couldn't find me. He said he looked everywhere, starting at the front of the school and working back. He stole a janitor's key ring and opened every locker once everyone left, unlocked every door and searched through every classroom, cabinet, and cupboard in the school until he finally found me in the library janitor's closet and, "God, I was so _scared_, Pagan," he breathed at the end.

Nonna didn't say anything, she let her eyes sort of glaze over and she stared at the glass cabinets behind us for several long minutes that eased together into silence. Pappous had her hand gripped in his on top of the kitchen table, and his knobby knuckles looked white against the dark mahogany, he was holding on so tight, as if Nonna was about to float away. I felt sleepy, I had no idea what time it was, and Blaine had his arms around me and it was _warm_, but just as I'd decided to lean over and drop my head onto his shoulder, Pappous stood up as fast as his aching back would let him and he shuffled around the table. He drew both of us out of our chairs, knelt down on the hard tile floor, knees be damned, and hugged us so tight I felt my spine pop and heard Blaine's do the same. He kept saying "I love you" over and over again, and then he said he was proud of us, and to never ever let each other down because we're all we have, and "I love you, I love you, _I love you both so much_," until he finally let us go.

Nonna got off the phone hours later after screaming at someone about the kids that locked me up for nearly nine hours, and then she'd called the police, who filed reports, and the parents were calling her back, and I fell asleep on Pappous' lap in the living room after another cookie and some hot chocolate, Blaine's hand warm and heavy and home in mine. Before I drifted off, though, I asked Pappous why he kept saying "I love you" so much because, "I love you, too, but I thought you knew that?"

He looked at me and his eyes looked sad, drawn down a bit at the corners, even when he tried to smile at me, and he said "So you won't break."

Pappous died two years later, before we found out that I had cancer, before Blaine decided to come out to our parents, before we broke so entirely that, in the same instant it happened, I'd already forgotten what it felt like to be whole.

* * *

><p>The sound of the front door slamming shut nudged me from sleep, but it was Kurt's frightened yelp followed by a solid <em>thump<em> that actually woke me up. I opened my eyes to see Kurt sitting up from the rug, rubbing the back of his head ruefully, while Blaine tried to help him up and, at the same time, was glancing around fearfully as if he had a body that desperately needed hiding.

Which, I suppose, he did.

It wasn't that our parents found him disgusting, they really didn't have anything against homosexuality as far as I could tell, it was just one more way that Blaine crushed all their hopes and dreams for their little boy. He was supposed to be a lawyer, or a medicine man, some sort of professional with six degrees and an office that took up an entire floor of a building, with secretaries and employees and a wife and a child and a _name_. But they got Blaine: sarcastic, musical, beautiful, an artist in every sense of the word. Blaine, whose political knowledge came from glancing at articles on his web browser before he switched over to the latest music sites, who could write a song in an hour but couldn't diagnose his own cold, who loved and lived with all his heart and didn't care what it did or didn't get him.

He was supposed to be a Henry. They never thought he'd be a Blaine.

It didn't stop my brother from trying to please them, though, and finding him and his boyfriend cuddled up in the den would be like rubbing it in their faces.

"Jesus, Blaine, what are you…oh, HELL, no, I can NOT fit in that thing, I'm not Pagan!"

I looked up when Kurt started speaking to find Blaine had a vice-grip on his boyfriend's upper arm and was casting furtive glances between him and the abandoned dumbwaiter, but Kurt was having none of it. I smiled and tried to sit up, but didn't get very far before the both of them pounced on me to make me lie back down.

"Seriously, guys, I feel fine," I tried to tell them, even brought Blaine's hand to my face to show him that my fever broke, but they started tickling me to make me stay down, and I was laughing too hard to protest.

That is, until a throat cleared from the double-doors behind us and Blaine and Kurt froze, peeking over the back of the couch at what I could only assume was my father. My suspicions confirmed when both boys slowly got off the couch and stood, hauling me up with them so I could see both of my parents in the door, Daniel behind them, lugging suitcases to the base of the stairs to be brought up. Dad looked between the three of us and gestured vaguely in my direction.

"Anne says she has an appointment tomorrow?" he said softly, obviously trying very hard not to look at Kurt too long.

Blaine just nodded, I could feel him move next to me and then his hand dropped into mine.

"Are you taking her, then?"

"Of course."

"He going with you?"

"Of course."

"If you need help with the insurance, give me a call."

"Always."

"It's getting late."

"I know."

"Goodnight Blaine. Pagan."

"Night, Dad," I said for the both of us, and then he and mom walked out of the room.

Blaine didn't say anything, he just turned and kissed Kurt long and hard on the mouth, knowing full well that our parents could walk by the door again, or even come back in, but part of me knew that Blaine was starting to come apart, starting to fray at edges that have already been taped together twice before, and I hated seeing him like that.

Kurt, for his part, came to his senses and gently pushed Blaine away, gave me a hug, and said to pick him up tomorrow before the treatment so we could all go together, and then he slipped out of the house.

I turned, reached up, and looped my arms around Blaine's neck.

"I'm tired, Pagan," he said.

"I know," I told him. "I know."

"No, Pagan, I'm _tired_," he repeated, pulling away from me, and his eyes were red and looked like they were having trouble focusing and I _knew_, I did, I knew _exactly_ how he felt, and I dropped my arms down to touch his hand to my wrist to remind him that I did, and always will.

"Sorry," he said, and I heard it again, _"I'm sorry you're sick, that I can't protect you from this, that our parents are disappointed in us, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_."_

So I told him, "I know," because I didn't know what else to say.


End file.
